2005-06-27

How modern Burmese got two grammars

First there were the Buddhist scriptures in Pali, with Burmese
interlinear translation, with conventional markers of number,
tense, case, and mood corresponding to Pali ones, just like the
1SG and ACC and PL that linguists use nowadays.

Next were the same texts, but with the Pali original left out:
a Burmese relexification of Pali, with conventional markers aforesaid.
This is called "Nissaya Burmese":
Burmese surface representations, Pali morphology and syntax.

Next were original works written directly in Nissaya Burmese.

Then came more original works in modified Nissaya, with some of
the Pali markers left out. The more Pali-esque, the more high-toned the
work was considered to be.

Next came writing in plain Burmese, but heavily influenced by
Nissaya conventions. This is roughly the level of newspaper
writing in Burmese today.

Next came elegant spoken Burmese, which was native morphosyntax
with many conventions taken from prose style, which was itself
a mixture of native and Nissaya.

Finally, colloquial
spoken Burmese picked up many of these conventions as well.

It seems that one cannot fully describe the linguistic habits of the
Burmese without using two sets of grammatical rules, one just like
the grammar of Pali, the other more characteristic of colloquial
Burmese. [Burling]

So are the most Nissaya-ish varieties really Burmese, or are they
really Pali? Well, the grammar is surely Pali, but they are connected
by an unbroken chain of mutually intelligible 'lects to colloquial
Burmese, whereas Pali itself is completely shut off by an impermeable
lexical barrier. (Burmese has borrowed many Pali morphemes, but not so much that
Pali is even vaguely intelligible without learning it.)

Note that the Pali influence in Burmese has been going on for a thousand
years: Burmese itself has evolved considerably from the form in which the
interlinear scriptures were first recorded. Pali morphosyntax is now so
deeply intertwingled in Burmese that we can only recover a "pure native"
grammar from comparative Tibeto-Burman considerations.

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